NOTE ON VAILE LETTER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 726, 27 July 1929, Page 9

NOTE ON VAILE LETTER

ANOTHER INCIDENT BEING PERFECTLY FAIR (THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter) PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Friday. "The Valle letter” incident marched a little farther on the political path in the House of Representatives this afternoon. When saying that he wanted to be perfectly fair to Mr. Coates, the Prime Minister quoted another letter read in the House on Thursday evening by the Hon. T. M. Wilford. Mr. Coates: Has the right hon. gentleman a copy of the telegram? Sir Joseph: No copy here. I don’t wan’t to do the right hon. gentleman any injustice, but on further examination of the file I find that the copy of the letter read by me in the House, right ahead of the other correspondence on the file, has written on it, in the writing of the Deader of the Opposition, “When I.C.M.T. was completed, I said the work would go on.” ‘‘That letter has an ink line drawn through it,” continued the Prime Minister. "Whether that is the letter Mr. Coates ordered should not be sent I do not know. It may be, but on the file adjacent to the letter of Mr. E. E. Vaile are two carbon copies of the reply I read out last night.” Mr. Coates said that Sir Joseph Ward did not read out the reply, and Sir Joseph Ward corrected himself by saying that the Minister of Justice, the Hon. T. M. Wilford, had. Mr. W. D. Lysnar (Gisborne): Is the letter dated and is there any signature on it? Mr. W. E. Parry (Auckland Central) : What does that matter? Sir Joseph Ward said that the letter had "1.C.M.T.” written on it. Mr. Coates: E.C., I think; my bad handwriting; the East Coast Main Trunk. The Prime Minister said that in its sequence on the file the letter was not attached to Mr. Vaile’s. but the copy the Minister of Justice had read was. Mr. Coates: I think my memory must be correct. There the yieident closed.